The Influence of Anger on Strategic Cooperative Interactions

Sergio Alessandro Castagnetti, Sebastiano Massaro and Eugenio Proto

Working Papers from Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow

Abstract: We investigate the effect of anger on performance and strategic cooperative interactions. In a laboratory experiment, we induced anger in participants playing an indefinite repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game against each other, showing resulting declines in performance and individual profit. We assess the dynamics of strategic cooperative decisions and behaviors, revealing that anger-induced subjects used suboptimal strategies. We further describe the underpinning mechanism of automatic emotional regulation by analyzing participants' heart rate variability indexes. Finally, we extend our findings in an online experiment with an independent sample, increasing generalizability and helping explain how anger influences participants' ways of strategizing. Altogether, our contribution advances theoretical and practical implications regarding the impact of discrete emotions on strategic outcomes.

Keywords: anger; behavioral strategy; heart rate variability; indefinite repeated Prisoner's Dilemma; strategic cooperative interactions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 C9 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-gth and nep-neu
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gla:glaewp:2021_05

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